IHG Point Breaks are a great resource for traveling on the cheap. Every 2-3 months, IHG / Priority Club releases a list of ~150 hotels that can be booked for only 5,000 points a night. This can be a huge savings over the regular award price, which can be 15,000, 20,000 or even more points per night.
The Priority Club Point Breaks list for March 2015 – May 2015 was released at the end of February, with 149 hotels on the list. I published a map of all the Point Breaks locations, as I find that helps me visualize where the available hotels are
Point Breaks map!
Something suspicious going on
I got a comment on the Point Breaks map post, from a reader
I think the list may be inaccurate. Some are coming up for 15,000 points. Am I doing something wrong?
e.g.
Holiday Inn Express Milton (Ontario, Canada)
That led me to do a bit of investigating on the subject. I went to try and book a hotel near my sister’s home in Sacramento, CA. The Staybridge Suites Sacramento Natomas Airport was on the original list of Point Breaks (it’s the big orange dot in northern California on the map above)
But when I try to book it now for a random date in April, some of the dates are already sold out for points redemptions, but on the ones that aren’t, I get the following:
I went back to the official Point Breaks list, and sure enough, the Staybridge Suites Sacramento is GONE! I went through the list and there are over 50 hotels that are now gone. Most of the Asian hotels are gone, as well as all but one in the UK and all but one in Canada. And of course, many US hotels are gone, including the one I was looking at.
Dirty trick?
I assume that this isn’t anything super-nefarious. IHG’s awards are already capacity controlled, and I assume that there are only a limited number of Point Breaks nights for each hotel, and when they’re gone, they’re gone. I’ve posted before that if there is a Point Breaks hotel that you are interested in, you should book it as soon as the list comes out, because hot Point Breaks hotels can sell out quickly!
I do find it a bit misleading that they just remove sold-out hotels from the Point Breaks list, like they were never there (cmon man this is the Internet – nothing ever disappears!).
I think that they should just acknowledge that there is a limited supply of Point Break nights (which they already kind of do), and then move ones that have reached that limit into a separate category so that people can see them, instead of just removing them from the list.
What do you think? Did you miss out on booking a Priority Club / IHG Point Break hotel that you had your eye on? I will update my map within the next day or so to reflect the updated hotel availability.
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Dan Miller travels with his wife and 6 (SIX!) children. He loves to help families travel for free / cheap, especially larger families. If you are looking for help, drop him an email at 
I don’t see the point of keeping properties on a point-break list that are no longer offering point-breaks. Why would a business throw it in a customer’s face that she could have been a winner if only she’d booked last week?
The hotel I stayed at for 5K last night is no longer on the list. I talked with the manager and she was very pleased with the buzz that was generated.
Yeah this is kind of annoying 🙁
Businesses routinely “throw it in a customer’s face” when an opportunity ends—to generate the “I should have . . . ” remorse that creates urgency at the next round of offerings. (Why do we see billboards announcing the lottery winners? It’s too late for me to win that money)
The reason they might want to leave sold out properties on the page is if a person unfamiliar with the program shows up and sees nothing much being offered, they will mistakenly believe that is normal and never return. By seeing that something good WAS offered and just sold out, it lets ne know I should try again with the page and just be a little quicker next time. It gives me hope for next time, versus a false belief that nothing good was EVER offered.
So this is more of a marketing exercise these days. The one I wanted to book was gone by Tuesday.
I was excited to book the hotel near my sister’s house and was super disappointed when it was gone. I mean it’s one thing if you need to have it capacity controlled, but at least don’t just take it off the list like it was never there!
I agree that as soon as there is no more availability the hotel should be removed from the list. I want to look at the list, see if there is any property suitable, and see if there is availability. I don’t want to waste time looking at something there is absolutely no availability for.
FYI – I was able to call customer service and get them to honor incorrect advertising. Still, they only gave me 2 nights (I was trying to get 5).
I wonder when people cancel Pointbreaks reservations, are those nights made available again for 5000 points?
Lastly, and a bit off topic, do other chains (Marriott/Starwood) have similar programs?
Interesting – I hadn’t thought about that. That’s actually the opposite of my normal strategy – usually it works for me that calling the local office instead of the customer service number. In this case, I tried calling the hotel directly but they weren’t able to help me.
As for other hotel companies, I’m not aware of anything like this with Starwood. Marriott does have a similar program, but it’s not as lucrative nor as extensive.
I also noticed that in some cases the Point breaks are not available through out the anounced period – ex, the period was June-July but Point Breaks were available just for 3 weeks in July.
A lot of times many hotels have already sold out
Removal from list is a feature, not a bug. 🙂